"cylinder head removal kit"

[Hedd_Jones]

put some pain on the puller, then pick the car up by the head/puller. leave it a day or so tapping it round with the persuador every now and again. eventually itll move

[Colin Wilks]

I found the trick to getting the porcelain out of a plug was to grind away the retaining ring of metal above the hex. A sharp tap on a suitable size drift from the electrode end and the whole thing pops out.

["Slack Alice" Simon]

Once its off and cleaned up there is no problem, it is just long neglect that causes the stiction.

[Colin Reed]

HI All,
In these circumstances  I use a FOX Wedge,
For those who have never seen one they are a hardened steel wedge and come in different sizes.
As an example one of mine is 2' wide x 6" long x 3/8" at the one end tapering to 1/64"
On something like a head would use 4 two on each side and you just tap them in slowly with a light load lifting the head' this way no damage to studs or spark plug threads and because of slow taper will not damage head or block

Cheers
Colin
NZ

[JonE]

Colin, so would you you introduce them into the core of the gasket for extra protection? Or above it? Or below it depending on whether the head was alloy?

[Stuart Giles]

I would keep banging wedges in the joint as a last resort. You can still see some evidence of the massive graunch marks which had been there around the edge of this cylinder block even after I'd machined 0.015" off the top face. It was quite surprising to me that the head gasket had still sealed beforehand.

[James Anderson]

Cylinder head has now been suspended from a hoist for 4 hrs and despite banging on studs, shows no signs of shifting. I doubt that it would move with the tools that have been demonstrated...what now? Remove individual studs in the hope that not too many snap? The ones around the water branch manifold are likely to be the main offenders but the rear ones will be almost impossible to reach with out moving the engine forward. I can see that Jon E's block off solution may not be an unreasonable prospect, although a chisel, ? fox wedge/equivalents and tyre levers is getting more tempting! But I'll resist...maybe until tomorrow!

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[Ivor Hawkins]

I don’t think I’ve seen such an original looking engine in forty years, no wonder it’s stuck!

[John Mason]

Ivor. I know it is a lot more work but have you thought of removing the block from the crank case complete with the head. Then using a stout length of wood as a drift hammer the wooden drift down each bore in turn to release the head.

John Mason

[James Anderson]

John, its me, James Anderson who has the problem with the cylinder head, hence my revival of this interesting and frustrating subject! The whole car is very original and it is its undisturbed authenticity that's now posing a big problem. It almost seems as if the head is rusted on to the block but from past experience, it is probably stuck by one or more rusty studs, hence my possible proposal to remove one or more  studs. But that's me in patient mode! Anyway, am done for the day and welcome any useful tips. Jone E is being very supportive via private emails and his solution of taking the block off and hitting the head from inside etc maybe the final solution.